lornamolleyroberto

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“I want to replace western art with that of the jungle, the lavatory, the mental institution”

Jean Debuffet

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Sell a man a fish, he eats for a day, teach a man how to fish, you ruin a wonderful business opportunity.

-- Karl Marx I think this quote sums up the Marxist perspective that could be applied to the way dealers may view outsider art. There is clearly a market for it and there is a fascination with it, so it is a valuable commodity. If you sell a man a piece of outsider art, he obtains something incredibly valuable. If you try and explain to him that any piece of art may or may not be considered outsider art and that it has no fixed definition, he may start to question the price, create his own artwork, or look for artists that don't know their work has this sort of value and label it accordingly. It could therefore be argued that 'outsider art' is just a label to sell work under; a unique selling point.

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Hiro Kurata

Another illustrator whose work feels influenced by outsider art.

"It's interesting when you start to realise that your lines are telling you something. When I am fed up, or by contrast, feeling free, my lines are very different. When I feel calm and aware of what's going on around me the lines I create are calm and confident, the rhythm of my breathing and the stroke of my hand link together."

Molley

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Flo Heiss

Not consider an Outsider artist, but I would definitely say he is a contemporary illustrator who has been heavily influenced by the genre.

"If I were to describe my work I'd say it's a collection of simple sketches recording what's happening around me. This can be poignant or mundane, beautiful or ugly"

Molley

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Adam Doyle

"Doyle’s work deals mostly with the themes of alienation and anxiety. The troubled and immobile charters in his images reflect the selfless, faceless and lost characters we see day to day on the streets of any city or floating through the subconscious. Doyle’s images also serve as a form of therapy, the repeated patterns and lines or the flow of words act as a mantra laid down in ink. Doyle has had no formal training in art. He lives and works in Dublin, Ireland."

http://www.outsiderart.co.uk/doyle.html Roberto

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Finally found these images. I thought they'd fit into this topic, but it turns out that this exhibition I went to in 2012 is run by the Supported Learning Creative Arts course at Walsall College - it's a course for students with disabilities to create art. This means they receive an art education, and so don't count as outsider artists.

However, I thought these poems were very beautiful, although in my mind I'm wondering if it's right to put this alongside outsider art. It led to a debate with my boyfriend as to whether I should post this at all, and so I thought I should post it anyway, as it's interesting to think about. Do artists with disabilities that directly affect their art count as outsider artists? 

https://www.walsallcollege.ac.uk/news--events/creative-talents-are-made-in-walsall/

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A Bill Traylor image I really like. 

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Research from 'The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat' by Oliver Sacks

     "Madeline J. was admitted to St. Benedict's hospital near New York in 1980, her sixtieth year, a congenitally blind woman with cerebral palsy...involuntary movements in both hands...a high-spirited woman of exceptional intelligence and literacy."

    Her hands were intact almost entirely, she could identify light touch, pain, temperature and partial movement of the fingers, she just felt them to be entirely useless, she describes them as;

    "Useless Godforsaken lumps of dough- they don't even feel part of me"

    To begin her 'activation' therapy the began by placing food slightly out of her reach forcing her to use her hands. As she rediscovered them, even the commonest of objects delighted her and she asked for clay to reproduce them.

     "Her first model was of a shoehorn, and even this, somehow imbued with a peculiar power and humour, with flowing, powerful, chunky curves reminiscent of an early Henry Moore"

Is Madeline J. an outsider artist?

Molley

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Meet Bertold, also found in a charity shop. It's a very naive representation of a lizard or crocodile I think. I would love to find out more about him. He's signed 'Sr: Cordova' underneath. 

- After having a quick look at Mexican folk art. This looks similar to Oaxacan sculptures. Here are some examples:

- I also found the following description of an item on an auction site. Unfortunately there was no image, but I think it might have been by the same artist as Bertold. However, I think they're mistaking SR for initials, when I believe it is the Spanish abbrieviation of Senor, meaning Mr. 

Oaxacan Wood Carving Flying Horse S.R. Cordova

This distinctive and whimsical wood carving come from Oaxaca region of central Mexico. T are no chips, cracks or repairs. It is signed on the bottom by the artist, S.R. Cordova. It is approximately 7 1/2 inches tall. The wings and tail detach from the main body.

Roberto

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Meet Mustapha - I found him in a charity shop. I'm not sure where he originally comes from, but I'd like to find out.  Roberto

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Jean Debuffet

Grand Maitre of the Outsider - 1947

"Those works created from solitude and from pure and authentic creative impulses – where the worries of competition, acclaim and social promotion do not interfere – are, because of these very facts, more precious than the productions of professionals. After a certain familiarity with these flourishings of an exalted feverishness, lived so fully and so intensely by their authors, we cannot avoid the feeling that in relation to these works, cultural art in its entirety appears to be the game of a futile society, a fallacious parade." — Jean Dubuffet. Place à l'incivisme (Make way for Incivism). Art and Text no.27 (December 1987 – February 1988). p.36

That art is to be liberated from the realm of culture and returned to the interior mechanisms of its creator nullifies the importance of institutions that have long supported it. Painters working in this interior mode will not think of how long their paintings will last but will glory in the moment of creation. Audiences, too, will take part in this celebration. "Art products," Dubuffet asserted in his "Author's Forewarning", (and views on them) are like beaujolais wine: I don't think they have a bouquet unless drunk during their first year. I am a presentist, an ephemeralist. Away with all those stale canvases hanging in dreary museums like the wives in Bluebeard's cabinet! They were paintings: they no longer are.72 

Source: http://www.rasa.net/writings/dubuffet.html

Roberto

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Bill Traylor 

A self-taught artist, born into slavery on a plantation in Alabama. His work has been described as a visual autobiography. He continued working on the plantation, even after emancipation, until physical labour was too much, after which he lived his life out on the street, where he created his collection of more than 1'200 drawings, often using supplies donated to him by passerby's or regular admirers of his work.

Molley

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Ionel Talpazan was born in Romania. He was raised by foster parents in a small village. At the age of eight, a particular event altered his life : he saw a flying saucer. Once he became an adult, a friend suggested to him to flee the country. This decision resulted in adventures full of danger : a night-time swim across the Danube, imprisonments, threats of deportation etc. Granted political asylum in the United States, Ionel Talpazan settled in New York and took up drawing and painting. He also began creating plaster models of UFO’s. His UFO art has filled the entire apartment, he has only kept a small space to eat. Talpazan remains convinced that soon scientists working for NASA will become interested in his drawings that contain the secrets of propulsion systems allowing UFO’s to move great distance. Many of his drawings contain writings, the majority in Romanian. On the backside of certain drawings, Talpazan adds images of the Statue of Liberty together with his hand prints, thus documenting his experience of America.

Source: http://www.abcd-artbrut.net/spip.php?article1395

Lorna

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Dan Miller

Dan Miller’s artwork reflects his perceptions. Letters and words are repeatedly overdrawn, often creating ink layered masses, hovering on the page and built up to the point of obliteration or destruction of the ground. Each work contains the written recording of the artist’s obsession with objects like light bulbs, electrical sockets, food and the names of cities and people. In 2007 Dan had a solo exhibition at White Columns, New York and participated in group shows at Gavin Brown’s enterprise, ABCD, Paris and was featured at The Armory Show, New York.

source: http://creativegrowth.org/artists/dan-miller-2/

Lorna

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George Widener

"All through his life George Widener has been fascinated with calendars.

"Other kids lined toys up in a row," he said. "I lined up dates."

Yet his fixation with calendars has ultimately turned him into a celebrated artist whose striking paintings of numbers, cities, maps and machines have been exhibited all around the world.

"[In my art] I am using the dates as the medium," he said."

Source: http://www.theguardian.com/science/alexs-adventures-in-numberland/2013/jun/17/mathematics

Lorna